


Not Quite Lost

by traptrixnepenthes



Category: Future Card Buddyfight
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traptrixnepenthes/pseuds/traptrixnepenthes
Summary: folks the flavor text on the disaster set terumi card ruined my life so here's my earnest attempt to bring our dear girl some happiness. it involves holding hands with herself, because that's just the kind of person i amidk when or where this takes place, but that's fine, because terumi doesn't either





	Not Quite Lost

**Author's Note:**

> this was written as a request! (specifically just for terumi content)
> 
> if you'd like me to write you something, you can contact me at my [tumblr](http://lovelystarimpact.co.vu/ask)!

The girl in front of her looked like a mirror image, except all wrong. The curly orange hair was right, but it was cut too short. The eyes were the same shade, but they were hiding behind glasses--maybe they were fake? Instead of a long gown, this girl wore overalls and a T-shirt, as if she were some sort of foreign artist, but the most obvious difference was that smile on her face. Terumi couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled, and seeing her own smile on someone else was...weird. Had it been anyone else smiling, she would’ve called it stupid, but it had been so long since she could look at her own face, or something that _looked_ like her own face, and seen real happiness there.

“Who are you?” Terumi demanded.

“I’m not sure!” The girl rocked back and forth on her heels, looking as if everything was just fine in the world, even though she’d just said she had no idea who she was. “How about you? Do you know who you are?”

“I am the great Demon Lord’s faithful servant,” Terumi said, and she could already feel herself getting annoyed with this nameless girl’s carefree attitude. “And my name is Terumi.”

“Terumi, Terumi… Something about that name sounds awfully familiar.”

Ugh. “Maybe that’s your name? The one you forgot?”

“Oh, that can’t be right. Wouldn’t it be weird if we looked so similar, and had the same name and everything? My name definitely can’t be Terumi.” Her smile widened. “So that means I’m just one little step closer to figuring out who I really am, if I’m not a Terumi!”

Talking to this girl was irritating. She was so _bright_ and _cheerful_ and _carefree_ , things Terumi wasn’t allowed to be in Kyoya’s court. If she was going to be honest with herself--which she wasn’t--she’d say she was almost...jealous. “If you don’t have anything to actually say, I’m leaving.”

She turned to go, but the nameless girl reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. Terumi turned back and ripped her arm away and snapped, “Let go of me! What do you _want?_ ”

“Oh, um...how do I put this. Is something wrong, Terumi?”

Yeah, she’s the same height as me and looks just like me but doesn’t know anything. “No.”

“It looks like you’ve got some sort of heavy burden on you, you know. You’re all hunched in on yourself, you’ve got these bags under your eyes like you haven’t slept in ages...I’d say you have too many things.” She paused a moment, and for the first time since they first met, the nameless girl’s smile dropped. “Too many things to think about. Since I don’t have anything to think about, I guess it’s easier for me to tell things like that?”

Terumi groaned. Whatever this girl was on about, it was clearly pointless, but it was also equally obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to get away without answering. “So you don’t have anything to think about, huh? I couldn’t tell.”

“Right? People seem so shocked when I tell them that!” And she was smiling again. “But the truth is, I really can’t remember anything. I’m not sure who I am or where I came from or anything that might have happened to me before. I really don’t have anything, so I can tell that you have too much!”

Oh. So she was a real amnesiac, or whatever you were supposed to call people like that. So she hadn’t just been being stupid when she said she didn’t know who she was, all cheery like that. “...aren’t you upset that you don’t remember anything? You don’t have any kind of identity, or...you don’t...have anything.” Just repeat her words back to her, that’s right.

“Not really. Instead, it feels like I had some sort of huge weight on my shoulders, the kind that could crush you if you slipped, and now it’s gone instead! People sound so confused when I say that, but it’s really not so bad.” She held a hand out to Terumi, who ignored it. “Why don’t you tell me what you have that’s weighing on _you_ so heavily?”

Terumi hesitated. Obviously, she shouldn’t say anything. The Demon Lord’s secrets were her secrets, and she was bound so tight to his service that even just thinking about saying anything should have been criminal enough for her to go straight to him and request an execution. But this girl who didn’t have anything was making it so tempting to tell her everything. Fill in her blanks with Terumi’s own words.

“...it’s the person I work for, I guess.” The words were out of her mouth before she even thought about saying them. “He’s a great and powerful Demon Lord, the strongest one in the world, but…”

“Tell me more about him!”

“His name is...Kyoya. He’s something like a god, really. He’s more powerful than you can imagine.” The nameless girl nodded earnestly, he glasses glinting in the light. “He...rescued me, a long time ago, from...some bad things. A god himself came down and took me under his wings, so to speak.” Terumi paused. “He doesn’t actually have wings.”

“I’ve heard a lot of gods don’t have wings. In...some world or another. I think it started with an L?”

“He saved me, and I...I pledged my life to him. That was a while ago. I didn’t really know what it meant, to pledge your life to someone. To...someone like him.” Maybe this was too personal. She should stop talking. What if her Master heard her, somehow? “He...owns me now. Body, mind, and soul. One of the other people who work with me say I’m just a puppet of his.”

The nameless girl tilted her head to one side, her curly hair bouncing gently, and then she stood up on her tiptoes and wave a hand over Terumi’s head. “I don’t feel any puppet strings. And I don’t think even a god can _own_ someone, anyways.”

“...he can. If anyone can, _he_ can.”

“Well, if you say so.” The nameless girl smiled at her again, and it was _almost_ that pitying smile Terumi got from the other people around her, except this one felt genuine. A real smile. A caring smile. “Well if he’s so bad, why don’t you run away?”

“I-I never said he was bad!”

“Then why did you tell me about him when I asked what was wrong?”

The girl was right. Absolutely correct. Whenever Terumi thought about what was wrong in the world, what was wrong in her life, her mind always went to Kyoya first, before darting away from it and blaming everything on someone else. She felt so powerless compared to him, a tadpole compared to a shark, but she’d never even considered running away from him. She’d just accepted her role as his pretty little plaything, a servant who’d do anything for him, but now that this girl was here in front of her…

“...I couldn’t run away anyways. He’d find me.”

“You’ll just have to keep running, then!”

“It won’t work. He owns me. I--Terumi--am just his property, and I--”

“So,” the nameless girl said, starting to sound a bit exasperated, “what if you _weren’t_ Terumi?”

“Wh--” That had come out of nowhere. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“Well, you said he owns Terumi, right? So then if you’re not Terumi, then he doesn’t own you! Pretty simple, don’t you think?” The girl grinned wide. “It’s not so bad, being not a Terumi. I’m an expert in it.”

“I’m not going to become like _you_. You don’t have _anything_.”

“I do have some things! There’s this song I can almost remember--” She hummed a few bars, and it was far too upbeat for Terumi’s tastes. “--and I can almost remember someone. I think they were part snake, but that can’t be right. But every time I try to remember more about it, it just gets further and further away from me. Besides,” her smile softened, and she held her hand out again, “it’s not like you have to forget everything just to run away.”

Terumi looked at the outstretched hand. Here she was again, someone offering to rescue her again. Every time, it was just a situation she’d put herself in all on her own, and every single time, someone else had to drag her out of it. But this time...it wasn’t some all-powerful person or being or god, it was just some regular girl. Even if it looked the same from the outside, it was completely different.

She wanted to reach out and take that hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Not just yet.

“If I run away…”

“Yes?”

“Will you come with me?”

“Sure!” The girl paused again, having answered without thinking, probably. “Why do you ask?”

“...I don’t really like being all on my own.”

“Then let’s run away together, Terumi!”

For the first time in a very long time, she smiled. “No, that’s not it. My name isn’t Terumi anymore.” And then she reached out and took the nameless girl’s hand.

Where two girls with names and identities once stood, there were now two nameless girls. One had long hair and a long gown, and the other, a faulty mirror image, had short hair and overalls. One had lost everything, and the other had given up everything, but here they walked, hand in hand, knowing that they had each other.


End file.
